Symptoms

The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log:

2012-11-15 19:01:47,722 ERROR [http-8090-2] [[Standalone].[localhost].[/].[action]] log 
Servlet.service() for servlet action threw exception
java.lang.Error: Invalid escape character at line 1 column 5.
	at ognl.JavaCharStream.readChar(JavaCharStream.java:320)
	at ognl.OgnlParserTokenManager.getNextToken(OgnlParserTokenManager.java:1536)

....

Cause

The Backup Path for custom backup contains invalid escape character(s)

Resolution

To fix this, we need to edit the backup path manually in the database:

• Backup your database
  Run the following SQL query which outputs the BANDANAVALUE all of Confluence settings configured:

  SELECT BANDANAVALUE FROM BANDANA WHERE BANDANAKEY='atlassian.confluence.settings';
  

• Copy the output of BANDANAVALUE and paste it into Notepad
• Locate for <backupPath> XML tag. The path is located inside this tag

• If there are any invalid characters, edit the backup path. Use forward slashes "/" instead.
  To update the backup path, run the following query. Please edit <insert-bandana-value> in the query below from the edited BANDANAVALUE 

  UPDATE BANDANA SET BANDANAVALUE='<insert-bandana-value>' WHERE BANDANAKEY='atlassian.confluence.settings';

• Go to Confluence Admin > Cache Statistics > Flush All
• If issue persists after performing the steps above, try to restart Confluence